With the recent developed and widespread computer networking technology, ubiquitous computing technology and a wireless sensor network or a ubiquitous sensor network (USN) technology come into the spotlight as next-generation computing technologies.
The ubiquitous computing technology is directed to provision of all user-desired computing services anytime and anywhere and basically based on a wireless sensor network. To be specific, computers and sensors are installed at invisible positions in ambient living spaces and connected with each other over a wireless network, thereby sensing various data, recognizing contexts and situations based on the data, and providing a variety of services.
A ubiquitous healthcare system (u-healthcare system) is a killer application of the ubiquitous computing technology. The ubiquitous healthcare system results from combination of the ubiquitous computing technology and healthcare services which are a matter of primary concern nowadays, and facilitates checking and managing health states of children, aged or feeble people, chronic patients, and the like in real life anytime and anywhere. A currently developed ubiquitous healthcare system is configured with a wireless or wired body/wrist wearable biological signal sensor apparatus, which is connected to a portable user terminal or a computer and interoperates with a remote hospital or a healthcare server.
FIG. 1 illustrates a configuration of a conventional user interface system using a biological signal sensor apparatus wherein the system is a ubiquitous healthcare system using a wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional ubiquitous healthcare system includes a wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus 10 for collecting health information of a user 1 while worn on a wrist of the user 1; and a portable terminal 30, a home server 40 and a personal computer (PC) 50 which are connected with the wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus 10 via a wireless communications link 20.
The portable terminal 30, e.g., a personal digital assistant (PDA), is connected with a wireless local area network (LAN) access point 70 via a wireless LAN 60 which in turn is connected with a healthcare server 90 at a healthcare authority via the Internet 80. The home server and the PC 50, which can access the Internet 80 by themselves, are directly connected with the healthcare server 90.
In the above ubiquitous healthcare system, the wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus 10 collects the health information of the user 1 on occasion, and, the collected health information is transmitted to the healthcare server 90 via the portable terminal 30, the home server 40 or the PC 50.
Drawbacks of the user interface system using a biological signal sensor apparatus, e.g., the ubiquitous healthcare system of FIG. 1, are as follows. First, it cannot support free mobility of a user due to a limited communicable distance of a wireless or wired communications link. Second, it cannot recognize at which space a user is currently located even though it can perform wireless communications in an actual use-environment having several spaces. These drawbacks are problems to be solved for implementing a real sense of ubiquitous healthcare system through which healthcare can be performed anytime and anywhere. In particular, provision of location information necessary for rescue of a user in an emergency such as a heart attack, a blackout, a trouble in movements and the like is a very important and essential function of the ubiquitous healthcare system.
The GPS (Global Positioning System) based location recognition technique is being applied to various fields as means for detecting location of a user. However, the GPS is inadequate for an ordinary life because it is not available in an indoor area.
Further, configuration and functions of the conventional wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus are focused only on healthcare. Therefore, the conventional wrist-wearable biological signal sensor apparatus does not recognize behavioral and emotional states of a user which can be recognized using various biological signals sensed from the user, and thus, cannot be utilized as an interface with a variety of ubiquitous service devices.